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An April vote by employees at the Citizen Hotel in downtown Sacramento, including guest services agent Jessica Rios, gave them union representation by Unite Here Local 49.

Kathy Robertson

Staff writer

(Page 3 of 5)

The Citizen Hotel in Sacramento became a union shop when a majority of the hotel’s 120 workers signed cards in April saying they wanted to be represented by Unite Here Local 49 — and hotel management agreed to honor the vote.

Millions of other workers could go this route, many without the blessing of management, if the Employee Free Choice Act is approved by Congress and signed by President Obama.

Labor leaders launched an offensive around Labor Day to generate support for the legislation, sidelined so far by the debate over national health care reform. Obama told an AFL-CIO audience in Pittsburgh on Tuesday he supports the act, which would make it easier for workers to organize.

An emotional and high-stakes issue for workers and employers, the law is touted by organized labor as a route to rebuilding the economy and blasted by business interests as the most sweeping and inequitable change to labor policy in more than 70 years.

“The strong middle class created by labor unions has suffered with the decline of the labor movement,” said Bill Camp, executive secretary for the Sacramento Central Labor Council. “If we are going to revive our economy, we must have a system (to achieve) sustainable wages. The Employee Free Choice Act simply restores some of the balance so workers in this nation will have a voice.”

Card check is not about lifting up workers, it’s about union executives enhancing their power by avoiding the time, expense and risk of giving workers a chance to express their views in a secret-ballot election, counters a white paper prepared by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“It’ll allow employees to organize by signing a card in public — in violation of and at odds with all the traditions of a secret-ballot election,” said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the national chamber’s Workforce Freedom Initiative to oppose the act and other union initiatives.

A bigger problem than cards or secret ballots are provisions in the bill that give an independent arbitrator power to decide contract terms if management and union representatives are unable to reach agreement within three months, Spencer said. The decision would be binding for two years.

California attempt vetoed

Efforts to allow card-check organizing for farm workers in California hit the wall again this year.

On Sept. 2, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed Senate Bill 789 by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. The bill would have allowed farm workers to organize by card check, in he same way as the Employee Free Choice Act.

EFCA won’t fix the problem for farm workers, because they are specifically excluded from federal labor law.

“I am disappointed that the governor once again denied farm workers free and fair union elections that would enable them to have more say about the safety of their workplaces,” Steinberg said in a news release when the bill was vetoed.

Similar bills were vetoed by Schwarzenegger in 2007 and 2008.

“This process fundamentally alters an employee’s right to a secret-ballot election that allows the employee to choose, in the privacy of the voting booth, without coercion or manipulation, whether or not to be represented,” Schwarzenegger said in his veto message.

The bill was sponsored by the United Farm Workers, which argues that workers would be allowed to choose either a secret-ballot election or a card-check approach.

These workers need union protection because they work in isolated areas state labor inspectors fail to reach, said Merlyn Calderon, California policy director for the UFW.

A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in July alleges 11 farm workers have died from heat-related illness since California adopted regulations in 2005 to protect them. One of them was 17-year-old Maria Isabel Jimenez, who died of heat stroke two days after collapsing in a vineyard near Stockton.

“All I think about is what the governor told us when Maria Isabel died,” her uncle, Doroteo Jimenez, said through a union translator Wednesday.

“He said that things were going to change for all workers who labor in the fields. Now that he vetoed this bill, I feel like he lied to us,” he said. “We haven’t seen the changes. Now we workers have no choice but to try to organize ourselves and hope that the next governor will truly give us the support we need to be able to join a union and see those changes.”

The state has expanded training and outreach to employers and workers about heat-related illness. While the 200 state inspectors will never be able to visit every work site across the state, compliance with the regulations has increased from 32.5 percent of 234 work sites inspected in 2006 to 81.4 percent of the 2,349 inspected this year, said Dean Fryer, a spokesman for the California Department of Industrial Relations.

More about power than rights

Skeptics claim the fight over card check is more about union and employer power than worker rights.

“We are pleased the governor once again rightfully vetoed this bill,” John Kabateck, executive director at the National Federation of Independent Business/California, said of SB 789.

“Under card check, union organizers themselves physically handle the cards and the votes of employees could be made public to the employer, the union organizers and co-workers,” he said in a news release when the veto was announced. “Employees are better protected from interference and intimidation by casting their vote privately with a secret ballot.”

U.S. Rep. Doris Matsui, a Democrat from Sacramento, sits on the other side of the fence.

“I believe in preserving the middle class and that it is critical we continue to keep the central promise of our nation’s labor laws — that workers be empowered to make their own decisions about a collective bargaining representative,” Matsui wrote in an e-mail. “It is my priority to continue fostering growth in our region through engaged unions, good jobs with fair wages, and a thriving small business community that is the engine of our local economy.”

Unions and some researchers claim employers have the upper hand when there’s a secret-ballot election.

Following the rise of “union avoidance companies,” illegal firing of pro-union workers has become a big issue in secret-ballot elections, said John Schmitt from the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington, D.C.

One in four elections between 2001 and 2007 was marred by an illegal firing, according to the National Labor Relations board. That’s up substantially from one in six in the 1990s, he said.

“We need the Employee Free Choice Act to fix this broken system in which corporations have way too much power,” Schmitt said.

Workers’ ability to organize has eroded significantly over the past 50 years, said Ken Jacobs, executive director of the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

“The Employee Free Choice Act will go a long way toward helping restore worker rights to organize and bargain collectively,” he said.

Have it both ways

Joie de Vivre, the company that owns the Citizen Hotel, has it both ways. The San Francisco-based company owns 38 hotels; 17 of them operate under union contracts.

“We’re happy to go either way,” said Jane Howard, chief people officer for the company.

Joie de Vivre agreed to remain neutral on union organizing in Sacramento from the very beginning, when initial plans to convert the building to a hotel were discussed with city officials. This is a common practice, Howard explained, especially when city dollars are part of the financing.

“My opinion? A better approach is a secret-ballot election,” Howard said, “but there are pros and cons. There are ways to manipulate a secret-ballot election and ways to manipulate card check. Everybody needs to be fair and just — and ensure employees get or don’t get union representation based on what they want.”

Jessica Rios, operator at the Citizen Hotel, said the early agreement eased the entire process. Workers were introduced to union representatives during orientation when the hotel opened in November. Those interested learned more. A committee was formed and once members felt there was general support, they passed out cards for a vote.

“We ended up winning by more than 70 percent,” Rios said.

Employee Free Choice Act

Current labor law allows workers to organize by:• Approval of union representation by majority vote in a secret-ballot election or• By a card-check system whereby a majority of workers sign cards expressing support for the union and management agrees to honor the vote.

The Employee Free Choice Act would allow:• Approval of union representation by majority vote in a secret–ballot election or• By card check if a majority of workers sign cards expressing support for the union.

Other changes in the proposed law would:• Require binding arbitration with a federally appointed mediator if agreement is not reached on an initial contract for the new bargaining unit within 120 days. The contract would be in effect for two years.• Levy a civil penalty of up to $20,000 per violation if an employer unlawfully interferes with the organizing process or during negotiations for the first contract, but imposes no penalties on workers for misconduct.

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